Friday, February 03, 2006

The Grey Area of Feng Shui and Bazi

I am no expert of metaphysical science (science based on philosophy), but I have some light reading on Feng Shui and BaZi (Destiny Code) from Lilian Too’s and Joey Yap’s books. Basically I believe in Feng Shui and BaZi, but I just found that it is difficult to practice them based on some vague and simple introduction books which are widely available in the market.

For example, the first thing you should before checking the Feng Shui for your house is to check for the direction of your house. This might sound simple, but it is extremely tricky. What determined the direction of the house? The main door? The overall direction which you feel the house face? Based on the main road? What about office building or apartment? The direction of you apartment’s door? The main entrance to your building? What if there is more then one main entrance? The overall direction which you feel the building face? For every direction which you conclude for your building, the outcome and analysis is extremely different. Some buildings have even more complicating scenarios due to weird design. Different practitioners will have their preferred methods and guidelines on determining the direction, but where is the REAL direction? I don’t quite doubt the foundation and principles of Feng Shui, but the methods to determine and calculate might be made based on certain assumptions of unofficial guidelines and preferences (which might be wrong, but no one can say for sure). For just Feng Shui, even the most media prominent figure such as Joey Yap and Lilian Too are advocating different ideas on so many fronts (I wonder what the rest of the practitioners have to say?)

The same goes for BaZi, where the strength of you Day Master needs to be determined first before you could unlock your destiny code. Usually we need to look at the Month season which you are born, but it is neither straight forward. It had many exceptions, and might depend on other elements in your BaZi (quantity and quality), hidden or rooted elements, and tons of others rules and sub rules as well. It is not straightforward at all, depending on unofficial guidelines, your preferences and experiences. If you fail to determine the strength of your Day Master properly, the interpretation of your Destiny Code shall be totally different.

I don’t think I have the knowledge and capacity to practice Feng Shui nor BaZi for myself. Even if I would look for a master to do the hard work for me, I wonder how much I could trust his methods and experience. Who is the most prominent and accurate practitioner? Can he or she guarantee that his interpretation is accurate? I certainly could not afford the most prominent one, and I wouldn’t want to waste money on someone which I couldn’t trust. I guess I am on my own at the moment. According to the Cosmic Trinity: Heaven’s Will (Bazi), Human Action (You) and Earth Luck (Feng Shui), at least I am still in control of one third of it (Human Action, Me!).